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Topic: interesting recipe i found on food tv site (Read 12721 times)

do you think the following recipe will produce a nice thin neopolitan style pizza margherita? if not, please point the way to a good recipe. thanks. My caputo flour just arrived in the mail today and i need a good recipe to use it for a 15 or 16 inch pizza.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Shape flour into a mound and make an indentation on the top. Pour the oil into the indentation and add the salt. Melt the yeast in a cup of tepid water and pour it into the middle. Start kneading the dough with your hands until all the yeast is absorbed and the dough feels elastic, firm, and looks shiny. See Cook's note*.

Roll it into a ball, sprinkle with flour and place in a bowl. Make a cross on the top. Cover with a cloth and leave it to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour in winter and 30 minutes in summer.

Stretch the dough and then roll it out with a rolling pin on a floury surface, until it is about 1/4-inch thick. Cover the surface of a baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of oil. Sprinkle with sea salt. Place dough on baking sheet and press the edges in firmly with your fingers. Add tomatoes, reserving a little of the juice, and drizzle with olive oil. Cook for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add chopped mozzarella. Tear the remaining basil leaves and scatter over mozzarella. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with Parmesan and the rest of the tomato juice. Cook for 5 minutes. Eat immediately.

Cut the tomatoes in half. As you drop them into a medium-sized bowl squeeze them with your hands so that the juice comes out. Add garlic, olive oil, salt, and half the basil leaves. Leave to marinate while the dough rises. *Cook's note: We find that it's better to use mozzarella which is 2 days old, because it's less watery.

I tried this recipe once, especially after Tyler Florence said on the TV segment that it was the best pizza he had ever had, or something to similar effect. In my case, I used the King Arthur 00 "clone" flour and the results were so poor that it prompted me to send an email to King Arthur to complain about the flour. I never did try the recipe again after discovering "real" 00 flours but looking at the recipe now I would be inclined to agree with Jeff. You will also note that the recipe doesn't call for any salt in the dough, only a pinch for the pan. Some users of 00 flour think it has a naturally "salty" taste, and maybe Signora Raffone was one such person. BTW, one ounce of fresh yeast as called for in the recipe is about 1 1/2 of one of the Fleischmann's fresh yeast cubes as sold in the supermarket. For 14 ounces of flour, that is extremely high in my opinion even for a short term dough. That's about 7 percent by weight of flour. Along with no salt in the dough itself to restrain fermentation, that is why the dough can rise in 30 minutes in the summer.

The most interesting part of the recipe for me turned out to be the use of the cross in the dough. I don't know if it was for a practical reason (to be able to tell when the dough had risen enough by the expansion of the cross in the middle of the dough) or whether it was for divine intervention. Either way, I don't think I would use the recipe.

pizzanyc, I'm getting the sense that you are a trying to find a short cut here. Don't get the sense that we are rejecting all your attempts... it's the flour, water, salt and yeast that are the problem here, not us... They are just not so forgiving.

I know that my site is TOO detailed for some and can be a little intimidating. But you don't have do to 100% of it to get the benefits. If you read through is slowly, you should be able to glean a lot out of it. For now, forget the part about the sourdough culture, the high temp oven and the sauce, etc.. Just focus primarily on the autolyze and wet kneading technique along with the basic formula of bread flour, water 62%, salt 2% and yeast (a tiny amount, like 1/8 teaspoon). If you autolyze and wet knead properly, you will see instantly that this dough has a different feel, spreads like butter and tastes better than these shortcut recipes do.

pizzanyc, I'm getting the sense that you are a trying to find a short cut here.† Don't get the sense that we are rejecting all your attempts... it's the flour, water, salt and yeast that are the problem here, not us... They are just not so forgiving.

I know that my site is TOO detailed for some and can be a little intimidating. But you don't have do to 100% of it to get the benefits. If you read through is slowly, you should be able to glean a lot out of it. For now, forget the part about the sourdough culture, the high temp oven and the sauce, etc.. Just focus primarily on the autolyze and wet kneading technique along with the basic formula of bread flour, water 62%, salt 2% and yeast (a tiny amount, like 1/8 teaspoon).† If you autolyze and wet knead properly, you will see instantly that this dough has a different feel, spreads like butter and tastes better than these shortcut recipes do.

Jeff

since i have a very tiny kitchen with practically no space in the refridgerator that i share with other people. i can't exactly make sour dough in there. Sour dough takes a lot of time from what i've heard. you feed it and pour half of it out everytime from what i heard so it would be too time consuming for my first try and my fresh yeast is about to expire, so i can't take the time to make sour dough although i really wish i could take the time to make it. jeff, your site is amazing, but it's a little confusing for a novice baker who doesn't understand baker's percentages and etc and terms like autolysing. etc. For my first attempt at using caputo flour, i just want to get started using it, but at the same time i don't want to waste it. I've made pizza with high gluten flour before following instructions from "the art of pizza making by dominick angelis" and their recipe works fine for high gluten (noticed that with high gluten putting the dough in the fridge for 24 hours makes the dough much easier to stretch. So i was wondering is it the same case with 00 caputo or is it different? what's the standard procedure with caputo flour , is it different from high gluten? let me know. thanks.

LOL... you are a difficult case.... I know that you don't know the terms, but I define them... Thanks for the nice words about my site. Have patience. You can't learn this all in one shot.

Forget the sourdough for now.

The only difference with caputo is that you are going to put more flour in than I said. If you put in number i gave you, it will still be wet. It's ok, just keep adding flour until it dries out, just add a little at a time near the end.

The strechability of the dough is affected 90% by the use of autolyse and making the dough very wet. All other factors combined, like putting it in the fridge, the temp of the water when you start, etc. these add up to the other 10%. So don't worrry about it. Just get the mixing right. That's the most important thing.

LOL... you are a difficult case.... I know that you don't know the terms, but I define them...† Thanks for the nice words about my site. Have patience. You can't learn this all in one shot.

Forget the sourdough for now.

The only difference with caputo is that you are going to put more flour in than I said.† If you put in number i gave you, it will still be wet. It's ok, just keep adding flour until it dries out, just add a little at a time near the end.

The strechability of the dough is affected 90% by the use of autolyse and making the dough very wet. All other factors combined, like putting it in the fridge, the temp of the water when you start, etc. these add up to the other 10%. So don't worrry about it. Just get the mixing right. That's the most important thing.

Jeff

the numbers you gave me were:

580 grams caputo flour360 grams water (does it have to be a specific temperature?) and does it have to be filtered? if so, what's the effect of non filtered water? salt-14 grams-kosher or seafresh yeast - 1 gram

(to save me the time of weighing all these ingredients on the scale, can you tell me how much the grams would be in cups and tablespoons or teaspoons for the salt and yeast? )

so 580 grams of caputo is not enough, it would be too wet and sticky? so i would just gradually add a little bit more until it doesn't stick to my hand? and comes together to form a dough ball in the mixer? is this correct?

so far:I know you have to autolyse for 20 minutes with 75% of the flour and all water just sitting in the mixer covered with a cloth probablyafter the 20 minutes, i guess you add the yeast and then gradually mix in the salt.

Mix on lowest speed for 1-2 minutes or until completely blended. At this stage you should have a mix that is drier than a batter, but wetter than a dough. Closer to batter probably. after the 2 minutes of mixing, Cover with cloth and Let it rest for 20 minutes again.

then Wet Knead the dough

Start Mixing on Low speed for 8 minutes. 5 minutes into it start adding the remaining 25% of flour gradually.

Let it rest for 15-20 minutes.after that, do a window pane test and if you can see through it, i guess it's ready to take out and let it rise for like an hour?

after that, you put it in the fridge and retard the dough with slow fermentation for 24 hour to make the dough more extensible and develop the flavor? ?

I have been playing around with the new Lehmann dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_calculator.html and decided to plug in the numbers for the dough formulation you plan to use. I calculated all of the baker’s percents for the formulation and assumed that you would be making 3 dough balls, each of which would be for a 13” pizza, as specified by Jeff at his website. From the individual dough ball weight and pizza size, I calculated a thickness factor of 0.0846. What I got for results using the tool is the following:

You will note that there is no volume measurement given for the cake yeast (fresh yeast). That is because there is no good way to do such a conversion. However, the way that is often used is to relate an amount of fresh yeast to one of those little cubes of fresh yeast (usually Fleishchmann’s) that is sold in the supermarkets and weighs 0.6 oz. (17 g.). On that basis, 0.04 ounces of fresh yeast is about 7/100ths of one of those 0.6 ounce cakes. I have also read that one ounce of cake yeast is equal to 1 1/2 tablespoons, or 4.5 teaspoons. I don’t know if that number is any good, but on that basis, 0.04 ounces of cake yeast comes to about 1/5 teaspoon.

If you would like to change your numbers in any way, such as number of pizzas and/or the sizes of pizzas, you can do that using the tool and it will give you the amounts of ingredients to use. I know that Jeff says not to be enslaved by baker’s percents and the like, but until you get your sea legs on what you are trying to do, the tool may help you out. For further information on the tool, you can go to this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3477.new.html#top.

I have been playing around with the new Lehmann dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_calculator.html and decided to plug in the numbers for the dough formulation you plan to use. I calculated all of the bakerís percents for the formulation and assumed that you would be making 3 dough balls, each of which would be for a 13Ē pizza, as specified by Jeff at his website. From the individual dough ball weight and pizza size, I calculated a thickness factor of 0.0846. What I got for results using the tool is the following:

You will note that there is no volume measurement given for the cake yeast (fresh yeast). That is because there is no good way to do such a conversion. However, the way that is often used is to relate an amount of fresh yeast to one of those little cubes of fresh yeast (usually Fleishchmannís) that is sold in the supermarkets and weighs 0.6 oz. (17 g.). On that basis, 0.04 ounces of fresh yeast is about 7/100ths of one of those 0.6 ounce cakes. I have also read that one ounce of cake yeast is equal to 1 1/2 tablespoons, or 4.5 teaspoons. I donít know if that number is any good, but on that basis, 0.04 ounces of cake yeast comes to about 1/5 teaspoon.

If you would like to change your numbers in any way, such as number of pizzas and/or the sizes of pizzas, you can do that using the tool and it will give you the amounts of ingredients to use. I know that Jeff says not to be enslaved by bakerís percents and the like, but until you get your sea legs on what you are trying to do, the tool may help you out. For further information on the tool, you can go to this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3477.new.html#top.

Peter

thanks to peter and jeff for all your help. I just finished all my mixing and autolysing and i've put the dough balls i formed in a ziplock bag for it to rise for 1 hour. afterwards, i will put it in the fridge to ferment slowly. i did the window paning test on a very tiny piece of dough and it looks like the dough will be much better than my last batch 00 flour dough, it was actually not hard to stretch out and the dough felt different from the other batch i made with farina tipo 00 flour. I think this one might actually work.

again thanks a lot to everybody for putting up with my annoying questions, but i still don't understand baker's percents at all. will have to start reading those baking books i guess. have no idea how you calculate thickness of a crust, that's really interesting. that dough calculating tool is very interesting. after about 24 hours of fermenting in the fridge, i'll bake it and take photos. really hope i can learn how to make sourdough next time and come up with a pie similar to patsy's.

The beauty of the tool is that you don't have to understand baker's percents. However, you have to have them, and in your case Jeff gave you enough information to easily calculate them (he even posts baker's percents at his website for his particular formulation). To calculate the thickness factor (TF) of a dough requires knowing the weight of a single dough ball and the desired thickness of the finished dough/pizza. In your case, the total dough ball weight is 955 grams (580 + 360 + 14 + 1 = 955). If you are making 3 dough balls, each one will weigh 318.33 grams (955/3 = 318.33). To convert the weight of a single dough ball to ounces, you divide the grams by 28.35 (there are 28.35 grams per ounce). Doing this gives us 11.22 ounces (318.33/28.35 = 11.22). To then calculate the thickness factor (TF), all that is necessary is to do this simple calculation:

TF = [DW/(3.14 x R x R)],

where DW is the single dough ball weight (11.22) and R is the radius of the pizza (diameter divided by 2, or 13" divided by 2 in your case). The number 3.14 is Pi, the Greek letter. Inserting the numbers in your case gives us:

TF = [11.22/(3.14 x 6.5 x 6.5)] = 11.22/132.67 = 0.0846.

To give you a frame of reference for comparison purposes, the thickness factor of a NY style is typically 0.10-0.105. So, your finished pizzas will be thinner than a NY style. The TF is somewhat of a fiction but it works quite well to allow you to make different pizza sizes and thicknesses and have the same characteristics and consistency from one pizza to the next.

If you have interest in seeing how bakerís percents are calculated and used, a pretty good mini-tutorial is at this King Arthur article at http://web.archive.org/web/20090106001715/http://www.kingarthurflour.com//professional/bakerspercentage.pdf . You might even try calculating the bakerís percents for your particular dough formulation. The reason why the calculating tool was developed was to make all the math easier once bakerís percents and thickness factors are derived. The math may seem a bit complicated, but that is because I walked you step by step through the process. Once you understand the math, it will take you about a minute with a calculator to get the numbers you need.

I think that's one of the reasons why it is somewhat of a fiction. As you know, the calculation correlates surface area (Pi R squared) and dough weight. That's all. So, if you make the rim big, the thickness of the rest of the pizza crust will be less than what the calculation would suggest. The way you would adjust the next time would be to increase the thickness factor. Or if your rim is almost nonexistent, you would decrease the thickness factor the next time. Of course, the value of the calculating tool is that once you have baker's percents and a thickness factor, the tool does all of the rest of the work, including conversion of weights of most of the ingredients to volumes.

BTW, the NY "elite" pizza styles, such as I would characterize yours, tend to have thickness factors of around 0.07-0.08. When I derived the thickness factor for a DiFara dough based on what Dom DeMarco told me about his dough ball weight and corresponding pizza size, I came up with a thickness factor of 0.086. That difference compared with yours isn't particularly material since most people don't measure out the sizes of their pizzas exactly and they don't usually weigh out a dough ball exactly. The value of the thickness factor is that it gets you on the playing field rather than in the centerfield bleachers.

As a followup to your last post, I want to mention that Patsy's does not use 00 flour. I don't know what flour is used but it isn't 00 flour. The other old-name NY "elite" places, including Lombardi's, which you mentioned in another thread recently, don't use 00 flour either, except for DiFara's, which uses a combination of 00 flour and a high-gluten flour. Lombardi's uses All Trumps high-gluten flour. Of course, if you are using a standard home oven your pizzas won't come out like the old-name elite places, or even like Jeff's, because most of them are using either high-temperature coal-fired ovens or gas-fired ovens. More recently, of course, UPN and a few others use high-temperature wood-fired ovens. UPN uses 00 flour.

The value in following Jeff's dough making instructions is to understand basic processes and to develop a high-quality dough and good dough making skills. For now, that's perhaps more important than the oven.

I gotcha. I guess since I can only make a pizza to fit my stone, I never think about it. I have varied my dough size from 260-350 in various experiments, and in the end come to about 320 as my preference.

Can you explain the steps you followed from the time you put the dough into the refrigerator to where you started to shape it? And what the dough looked like along the way?

Peter

took the dough out of the zip lock bag at around 12 pm and it was very sticky, stuck to the bag and to my hands, i put it onto the marble with some flour. combined two balls into one and started shaping the pizza, but when i transferred it to the peel, it got messed up cause there were holes in the dough and i stretched it too thin. so i added more flour and tried to shape it into a ball again and re-shape the dough. in the process, i think i messed it up. oh well. so after many frustrating attempts at shaping it, i decided to use a rolling pin and shape it that way, it was easier to handle after using a rolling pin.

is waiting 1 - 4 days really necessary with caputo flour? and will a caputo pizza bake well at 600 degrees with a pizza stone?

Let's assume you followed the recipe and mixing procedure that Peter and Jeff discussed (if you did not, start over)

First, NO ROLLING PIN ! Especially for Neapolitan Style pizzaSecond, try placing each newly mixed dough ball in its own round plastic food container. (Glad, Rubbermaid, Tupperware, etc). No container, use a wide bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Put in fridge. After rising in fridge, allow closed container to sit on counter for 1-2 hours until dough is about room temperature.Third, remove dough from container carefully while retaining its shape!. DON"T RESHAPE, COMBINE WITH ANOTHER BALL, or distort in any way. Round container ---> rough dough ready for pizza. There is no need to reshape, this will cause the dough to tighten up and make it difficult to stretch. That is why you you had to resort to a rolling pin. Don't do this again.

is waiting 1 - 4 days really necessary with caputo flour? and will a caputo pizza bake well at 600 degrees with a pizza stone?

4 days is not completely necessary, but you really need to try at least 2 days with that small amount of yeast. The result will be more flavor. It is best to get one complete process correct before changing much. This way you know what good dough looks, feels and tastes like. This is why Jeff suggested bread flour for your pizza. It tends to be more forgiving than Caputo. I think you should really try using King Arthur Bread flour(KABF) for your next pizza. If you are purchasing your Caputo from Pennmac, your are really wasting your money at this point. Hone your skills with less expensive ingredients until your get the process correct. After finding Jeff's site and pizzamaking.com I spent 5 months using only KABF. I have just recently changed to Caputo "00" flour.

A Caputo pizza will cook at 600 F, but it will take 6-8 minutes. A KABF based pizza tends to brown more readily than a Caputo pizza and it is easier to tell when it is done from a casual glance.

It might help to give you some background on the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour and how it can be used.

The Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour can be used in many ways but it has to be compatible with the particular dough formulation and dough management method chosen. For example, you can use the Caputo 00 flour with a commercial yeast, as is typically done in Naples using fresh yeast, and be able to use the dough several hours later, typically 7-8 hours later. In that case, the dough is allowed to ferment at room temperature. The Caputo Pizzeria flour can also be used with a natural preferment, and the dough can be subjected to a much longer room temperature fermentation that can easily go over 20 hours in some cases. A third possibility is to use a preferment and a long period of cold fermentation. This is basically what Jeff does. A fourth possibility is to use a commercial yeast in lieu of the the preferment, which is the approach you chose to use. Depending on which of the four approaches someone elects to use, the formulation and management of the dough have to be compatible. We know that what Jeff does works because he has been doing it for a very long time with exceptional results.

My best guess is that your problems arose because of insufficient fermentation of the dough. You were using a very small amount of yeast for over a pound of flour, and if the yeast wasn't properly and completely dispersed within the flour, the dough may not have developed and fermented properly. If the fresh yeast was losing its freshness, which can happen easily with fresh yeast, then that could have been a factor also. You didn't specifically indicate how you incorporated the fresh yeast into the dough, but the approach most commonly used is to dissolve the yeast in the water or crumble it into the flour. If you waited until after the autolyse to add the yeast, and if the yeast wasn't properly and completely incorporated into the dough at that time, then that could have been another factor working against getting proper fermentation. And, although the dough looked fine, it may not have been.

Even if the dough was in great shape coming out of the mixer bowl, it was still possible that the dough didn't get sufficient fermentation because of insufficient time in the refrigerator. Jeff recommends 1-4 days in the refrigerator for a good reason. It is because his dough formulation was designed for that length of time and type of fermentation. When a dough is under refrigeration, it sort of goes into a state of hibernation. Both the yeast and the enzymes in flour prefer and work better in a warm temperature environment. But if sufficient time is given to the dough while in the refrigerator, the dough will still develop through biochemical development and produce a usable dough. Cutting the fermentation time to about 12-13 hours as you did may well have been too short.

From your description of the dough, particularly the wetness and stickiness, it sounds like the hydration percent may have been too high also. You didn't indicate whether you lightly oiled the dough before putting it in the zip-type storage bag, but if you didn't do that then it could have stuck to the storage bag and made it exceedingly difficult to extract from the bag without mangling it. What I do when I use a storage bag is to inflate the bag using a straw (after the dough has been oiled and placed within the bag), and then close the bag shut while it is in its inflated state. This keeps the dough from sticking to the inside top of the bag. Next time you may want to use that approach or else use a container such as Jeff recommends. Jeff is an extremely meticulous person, and whatever he does is done after much contemplation and for a good reason.

I'm sure that handling the dough under the circumstances you described was a real challenge and a frustrating experience. That is something we all experience at one time or another so you shouldn't let it get you down. However, as Tony pointed out, when you combined the two dough balls and reshaped them, that made matters worse. Trying to stretch the dough out at that point can easily lead to holes and tears forming. Adding more flour and trying to work the dough with the added flour rarely solves the problem. And when you bake a dough in that condition, it will not bake up properly. Sometimes you can recover from this situation by letting the dough relax again, for up to an hour or more, and then gently handling it as you shape it into a dough round. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, or the results are mediocre.†

In your case, you can decide to give the dough another try and follow all the steps as suggested by Jeff in his instructions at his website. Or you can try another dough formulation. Having tried several if not most of the many possible approaches, I would say that if you want to continue to use the Caputo flour the easiest approach is to use the flour with commercial yeast in a same-day room-temperature fermentation. Jeff's use of a natural preferment is better in my opinion, but requires more work and more experience. But I don't see any reason why you can't use Jeff's dough preparation techniques, including autolyse and other rest periods. If you want to use fresh yeast again, we should be able to tell you how to best incorporate it into the dough. Other changes may also be required since you do not use the high oven temperatures that Jeff uses.

Let's assume you followed the recipe and mixing procedure that Peter and Jeff discussed (if you did not, start over)

First,† NO ROLLING PIN !† Especially for Neapolitan Style pizzaSecond, try placing each newly mixed dough ball in its own round plastic food container. (Glad, Rubbermaid, Tupperware, etc).† No container, use a wide bowl and cover with plastic wrap.† Put in fridge.† After rising in fridge, allow closed container to sit† on counter for 1-2 hours until dough is about room temperature.Third, remove dough from container carefully while retaining its shape!.† DON"T RESHAPE, COMBINE WITH ANOTHER BALL, or distort in any way.† Round container ---> rough dough ready for pizza.† There is no need to reshape, this will cause the dough to tighten up and make it difficult to stretch.† That is why you you had to resort to a rolling pin.† Don't do this again.4 days is not completely necessary, but you really need to try at least 2 days with that small amount of yeast.† The result will be more flavor.† It is best to get one complete process correct before changing much.† This way you know what good dough looks, feels and tastes like.† This is why Jeff suggested bread flour for your pizza.† It tends to be more forgiving than Caputo.† I think you should really try using King Arthur Bread flour(KABF) for your next pizza.† If you are purchasing your Caputo from Pennmac, your are really wasting your money at this point.† Hone your skills with less expensive ingredients until your get the process correct.† After finding Jeff's site and pizzamaking.com I spent 5 months using only KABF.† †I have just recently changed to Caputo "00" flour.

A Caputo pizza will cook at 600 F, but it will take 6-8 minutes.† A KABF based pizza tends to brown more readily than a Caputo pizza and it is easier to tell when it is done from a casual glance.

TM

actually, the first dough ball i tried to shape didn't end up as messed up as the one i used the rolling pin on, but that one i didn't bother taking photos of. But it had a thinner and more edible crust than the one i combined together, but tasted nothing like patsy's or nick's. that dough ball was the smallest i had. Yes, i DID BUY my caputo 00 pizza flour from pennmac.com. Is it the right kind of flour?

when i started to make the second pie, i thought i should combine 2 dough balls, since the first dough ball produced such a small pizza. so i put the dough onto the marble and started dusting it with flour and then started shaping the pizza. as i was shaping, i noticed, this dough was different from the other 00 flour dough i made pizza with, since there were a few tiny bubbles in the dough and the dough was quite easy to work with in the begginning to shaping it , but i dusted my metallic peel with semolina and when i transferred the stretched dough to the metallic pizza peel, there were several holes and i felt that i stretched it too thin, so i tried forming it into a ball and rehaping, but after many failures, i decided to just roll it out with a pin even though i heard it was not advisable from a video i watched. since i really messed up the dough this time.

----------thanks peter also for pointing out that this dough needs longer time to ferment since it has so little yeast. it also looked like the dough didn't grow in size at all. But when i put it in the plastic bag, i couldn't really tell cause jeff said that it was not supposed to be double in bulk. only supposed to grow 50%, so it was harder to tell.